How will sun’s massive flares impact Earth?

The sun unleashed a cosmic double whammy Tuesday, according to space.com, erupting with two major flares to cap a busy day of powerful solar storms. While auroras were seen around the north pole, the jury’s still out on whether the event will impact power grids up north.

Both of the huge flares ranked as X-class storms, the strongest type of solar flares the sun can have. They followed several weaker, but still powerful, sun storms on Tuesday and came just days after another major solar flare on Sunday night.

Polar geomagnetic storms are under way, according to spaceweather.com, which means auroras and could also mean radio blackouts that could affect air traffic communication there. More from space.com:

“First-look data from Stereo-B are not sufficient to determine if the cloud is heading for Earth,” astronomer Tony Phillips wrote on his websiteSpaceweather.com, which monitors space weather events. “Our best guess is ‘probably, yes, but not directly toward Earth.’ A glancing blow to our planet’s magnetosphere is possible on March 8th or 9th.” …

When aimed directly at Earth, X-class solar flares can endanger astronauts and satellites in orbit, interfere with satellite communications and damage power grids on Earth. They can also amplify the Earth’s display of northern and southern lights, also known as auroras. …